Halt, Fiend!

It’s a snowy, frosty morning when he rings the doorbell.

She’s finishing up her slice of toasted white bread with honey and marmite spread, complete with genmaicha tea with a hint of ginger mint. It’s a wonderful way to start the day, and she hops to the door without skipping a beat, flings it wide open without bothering to check who it is.

He stands there, quite handsome, and she figures that’s all a part of the ruse. With neatly coiffed short blonde hair just visible under a perfectly round hat, she thinks men and women must ironically fall for him everyday. He’s well dressed, surprisingly not in black, though she figures he’s not exactly bringing death upon her soul, but is rather sporting a soft beige coat with a white walking stick. The only things that are dark are his brown hat and his black sunglasses.

“Oh. Well then,” is all she can think to say.

He tips his hat, bows his head with a friendly smile. “Bad time?” he asks.

She blocks the entrance to the flat by sliding her body between the doorframe and the door itself. “Sort of,” she cringes. She had practiced the whole speech she would deliver to him in her mind, had yelled it in the mirror a fair amount of times, all concluding with epic finishing lines, hair tossing and swaggering away. But he stands as she stands, and they both know he’s coming in.

“Sort of the point,” he says with a grin, “For it to be a bad time and all.”

“Right,” she says simply, but remains where she is. That is, until he moves his cane forward and she realizes he’s coming in. She shoves off the doorframe and opens the door wider, reaches forward and grips his arm. “Do you need help?” She’s helped her fair share of blind men cross the street; never this kind of man, and never into her flat, but there’s a first time for everything.

“I’m fine thanks,” he says, motioning her away, “Fix me a cup of your tea, though, it smells great.”

~

Sip

Siiip

Siiiiiiiip

~

“Ahhh,” he sighs when he finishes, setting the teacup back onto its plate.

“So,” she says impatiently, can’t wait for him to just leave. “How does this work?”

He lounges back in the chair, lifts his arms up and leans on them like a pillow. Slowly he stretches, just as he’s stretching out this moment.

Bastard, she thinks. The prick knows this is torture, knows she wants to just get this over with, and he’s prolonging it. As though it in itself isn’t going to be a long enough journey.

He finishes his stretch with a particularly loud groan and then reaches down under the table to retrieve his briefcase. He lifts it onto his lap, feels around for the lock, twists and turns and smiles softly when it clicks open. She shifts in her seat to get a better look, gasps when she sees the insanely bright pink glow emanating from inside. He reaches in, takes something out, and closes it immediately. Sets the briefcase back down. “I really am quite sorry,” he says.

And in the moment she realizes that he is. Must have the worst and most satisfying job at the same time. She fights the urge to pour him another cup of tea. Maybe, she reconsiders, he sat down to share a cup of tea with her, stretched out the moment because maybe, he just doesn’t want to do this job. It isn’t the best, she thinks, and as he said before, the entire point of it was to arrive when people least needed or wanted him. She considers how many rude people he must deal with on a daily basis. “It’s alright,” she says softly.

He tries to smile, quirks the right side of his lips, but fails. Instead he simply brings up his hands, places the rose-coloured glasses on the table. “Put them on in forty-eight seconds.” He reaches around his chair and takes his hat he’s rested on the edge. He places it on his head, gets up.

She leaps up from the table, takes the glasses in her hands. “That’s awfully specific,” she says, put off by his abrupt message and now fast escape. “What happens if I don’t? When will I know when it’s time?” She’s already followed him to the door, and he knows the layout of the vestibule like the back of his hand. He grips the door and lets himself out.

“You’ll know,” he says.

Immediately after she closes the door behind him, the phone rings. Uncertain if she’s supposed to answer this, uncertain if she even has a say in her fate at all, she races back to the kitchen and picks up the phone. She squishes it against her ear with her shoulder, freeing her hands to take her teacup and finishes the last of her tea to clear her throat. “Hello?”

“Hello there,” is all that is said in response. And she knows who it is. And fuck. She thinks it’s ridiculous that there has to be a moment but christ, here it is. She sighs out her frustration. “You alright?” the concern is there on the other line, the worry and decency that she honestly had never given another thought to until this moment.

She takes the phone off her shoulder and slips the glasses on with one hand. “Yeah,” she says with another sigh. “Yeah, I’m fine.”